Sponsor a Birdathon

?help fund El Salvador`s permanent bird monitoring program

On 2-3 October, SalvaNATURA http://www.salvanatura.org will carry out its Second Annual Birdathon, to benefit El Salvador`s first permanent monitoring program for bird populations, established in 2003. The bird-a-thon will take place during BirdLife?s World Bird Watch, which is part of the World Bird Festival, which goes on the whole month of October. SalvaNATURA is El Salvador`s largest environmental organization, with over 85 employees, and the country`s BirdLife affiliate.

Millions of migratory birds from North America winter in El Salvador, but no one knows how well they survive the winters. Three monitoring stations are placed in national parks managed by SalvaNATURA and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, and the monitoring program is helping to determine if the protection at these parks is adequate to keep resident bird populations healthy. Another station is in shaded coffee plantations, to evaluate how well birds survive in this kind of disturbed forested habitat. The stations form part of a network contributing data to the Institute for Bird Populations study on winter survivorship.At least six teams of ornithologists will spread out across El Salvador during the weekend of October 2 and 3, to demonstrate how rich the country is in birdlife. They expect to surpass the previous birdathon record of 247 species (over 530 species are reported in El Salvador). Considering El Salvador is the size of Massachusetts, it has a very rich birdlife.

Please help support the bird monitoring program by pledging for the bird-a-thon. To do so, send an email with your pledge to: okomar@salvanatura.org It can be an amount per species (which will stimulate SalvaNATURA`s biologists to work harder during the bird-a-thon) or it can be a fixed amount. You will receive the results by email in October, including information on how to send your donation.